Aisi heard him before she turned the final corner, and she jerked to a halt. Mud pools boiled on either side of her on the rock-strewn path, but she couldn’t hear the odd bubbling sound or feel the superheated muck blistering the tops of her feet. She didn’t want to go in, but the thought of who she might see when she went into the demon’s den propelled her forward.
She took a deep breath and, unafraid, turned the corner. Vance stepped beside her and took her hand. Whatever happened now, they were in it together. She clasped his hand determinedly, holding the book and necklace even tighter with the other. If there were any chance at all she could get her sister back, she had to try.
“Wow,” said Vance as they entered. “Can we have a moment of silence in honor of what just might be the creepiest place I’ve ever seen?”
Aisi closed her eyes and shook her head. “Do you always ask awkward questions at the worst possible moment?”
Vance nodded. “Yes, I do. Nervous habit. But in my defense…” Using his free hand, he waved toward what waited for them at the end of the trail.
Glittering blue-white stalactites, like crystalline daggers, plunged almost to the ground on either side of the high-ceilinged cavern, dripping gray water into pools of acid. The puddles steamed and hissed angrily with each drop. The dark shadows of Malus’s minions clung to the iridescent ceiling and walls, red eyes trained on her. A lake of molten lava simmered in the center of the craggy floor. In the far corner, buried in the depths of shadow, more shining stalactites plunged down and stalagmites soared up, interweaving as they met. Just above this, two holes in the glassy rock glowed with red light where lava flowed over the edge and down the wall, like empty, weeping eyes above a skeletal grin greeting them as they entered.
“Love what you’ve done with the place,” Aisi called, her voice resonating hollowly through the cavern before fading out, drowned by the steaming sizzle of acid leeching from the rocks and the bubble of boiling lava. She looked around, eyes watering from the unbearable stench in the room. Shadows surrounded them, but distantly, and Malus was nowhere to be found. She scanned the rest of the cave for any sign of human life.
“I heard you, so I know you’re here, Armaros,” she said, hoping that using his real name would make him angry enough to present himself. She couldn’t fight an enemy she couldn’t see.
His deep laugh emanated from the walls around her and filled the room, but still he did not appear. “Vos es hic. Meus opus est perfectus.”
“You think your work is all done just because I showed up?” Aisi snorted in reply. “How stupid. You’re not even going to put on your scary ram head costume and try to freak me out? That’s pretty weak.”
“Si vos requiro…”
Malus emerged from the shadows, behind the stony cage in the dark corner. Her heart skipped a beat and may have plunged for just a moment into her stomach when she saw how much taller he’d grown since she last saw him, and how solid he really was.
The fully formed ram’s head, with sinister eyes gleaming at her, was much more fearsome in the light. In the dark she could convince herself her imagination had run wild and it wasn’t so bad. His muscular body, covered only with a long loincloth draped around his hips and falling to his knees, was the same deep black as her father’s. The demon’s broad chest and powerful legs were covered with short, shiny hair.
“Nice underpants,” she smirked, pointing to the loincloth.
“Silence!”
It was hardly more than a whisper, but it grew louder as it resounded through the cavern. Sudden pressure squeezed her head as if this simple word were a vice grip enclosing her skull. She closed her eyes and covered her ears as Vance cried out in pain, too.
“Your smart mouth will do you no favors in my realm, Sunshine,” Malus taunted. “Now that I have completed the set for my collection, with a juicy little bonus treat,” he said, eyes flickering toward Vance just briefly, “I can go forth and gather the rest. I told my brothers I would reclaim what they stole from me, in their foolish and misguided attempts at atonement. I am so close. How foolish to think they might thwart me.”
She didn’t need him to continue to understand how wrong she’d been to walk so willingly into his clutches. She sank to the ground as the vision of what he planned to do filled her head, making it thud in agony. He would come for Leo next, and when Jorja went insane after losing the last of her children, her father would present no challenge at all.
She swallowed hard, refusing to give him the pleasure of seeing her puke. She shut out the ugly scene he forced into her mind and looked up to see an unholy grin on the demon’s hideous face. Time to face reality: she was probably going down, but like the old man, she’d choose death before an eternity with the beast who wanted to take out her family.
“And you thought I would just sit here and let you do that?” she asked, finding the strength to stand back up. She shoved the book at Vance and shifted the old cross in her hand, so its jeweled face pointed at Malus. With a quivering arm, she thrust it forward. “Nobody messes with my brother but me. It’s all cute how you used visions of the old man to get me down here and made me think there was a chance I might get Nakia back, but if you think I plan to just sit here and take it, you’re a bigger idiot than I am.”
As soon as her sister’s name escaped her lips, a pained, high-pitched wail filled the air. Vance stepped back, instinctively covering his head and ducking as the shrill sound caused loose rock to rain from the ceiling and tumble down the damp walls.
“No! No! No! Never say that word!”
“Quieti, fileus meus,” Malus said, glancing up at one of the holes in the limestone wall behind him. “Vade tergum dormio.”
“The demon is trying to send someone back to bed?” Vance asked in quiet disbelief from behind Aisi, but he was cut off by another scream.
“NO!”
A tall, lanky girl clad in a filthy nightgown much too small for her, ripped at the neck and under the arms where the seams split, emerged from the clenched jaws of the skeletal cage. She was hardly more than a skeleton herself, sickly thin with unnaturally pale skin. She clutched an old, well-loved teddy bear close to her chest. Her frizzy, unkempt curls tumbled willfully out of two braided pigtails on the sides of her head.
As soon as one set of silver green eyes met the other, Aisi knew. Those nightmares she had through the years…nightmares of wandering alone in the yard of their old house with her sister’s favorite stuffed animal, nightmares of meeting a boy in black before the portal cracked and she woke up. She hadn’t been dreaming. She was seeing her sister. How often had she wished she could see Nakia, talk to her? Yet her sister was the one sending messages to her. All her resolve vanished in that moment and she was no longer Aisi Turay, hard-core demon fighter. She was a kid who lost her sister and would do anything to get her back.
“I warn you, Sunshine. Do not speak to her,” Malus said quietly, his silky smooth voice still carrying the hint of threat. He turned and walked back to where Nakia stood. He whispered to her in hushed tones, but her eyes remained locked on Aisi, who returned her gaze tearfully.
“Soror…?”
“She is only here to taunt you.” Malus’s whispered into Nakia’s ear, but the words echoed through the room as the demon moved to stand behind her. His arms slithered around her shoulders and neck so she couldn’t move. She sank back against him, looking relieved and scared at the same time.
“Do not believe her lies, Princess.” One clawed finger pointed at Aisi. “She is the one who forced you out and stole the love your parents owe you. She is here to mock you, to remind you of what should have been yours. She stole everything from you. I am the only one you can trust. I am all you have.”
“No! Nakia, he’s a liar!” Aisi rushed toward them. What she planned to do, she had no clue. Body slam him? Wrestle for her sister? She didn’t know, but rage unlike anything she ever experienced overwhelmed her. She hadn’t gone far when legions of shadowy demons lunged from the ceilin
g to keep her from reaching Malus. They surrounded her. “Get away from me! Abyssus!”
The demons backed away, but Aisi had no way to move past them and reach her sister. Fury threatened to knock her over. With a grunt of approval, Malus grinned. “I do love your anger and despair, Sunshine.”
“I hate you!”
A wicked laugh of triumph emerged from his mouth, shooting out with a narrow beam of white light which spread in a widening circle from where he stood in the center of the cavern. It blinded them as it hit and caused more rocks to tumble down and block the path that led back home.
She paced as dust rained down on her. She watched the demons hovering nearby as she debated what to do. Malus was feeding off Nakia, and Aisi had no doubt he would hurt her to get what he wanted, or kill her when he no longer needed her. She thought back to what Father J told her as they left. She needed everything she knew to conquer this demon.
What did she know? Her sister was here, maybe others, but as she looked around she couldn’t see anyone else. What else did she know? Her ability to move things with her mind! She turned to the rocks blocking her way out and focused on them. She closed her eyes. The rocks wouldn’t budge. She held her breath as she tried to move them but failed. She exhaled in frustration, head throbbing. Earlier in the day, she knocked over a whole bank of lockers just by giving it a dirty look—surely she could shove a few rocks out of her way. Her head pounded as she refocused and tried again. Her face burned while she strained, but nothing.
Malus clucked his tongue. “Silly, pitiful girl. You are…how can I say it so you will understand?...on my turf now. Your little mind tricks won’t work here.”
Aisi ignored him, shaking with the effort to move the rocks. It always came so easily to her, yet when she needed to do it, nothing happened. Tears squeezed from her eyes from the strain of trying. Sweat beaded on her temples and ran down her face. She finally collapsed, panting from the hopeless effort, her eyes seeking out her sister as she opened them. Nakia, still enfolded in the demon’s gloomy embrace, stared back at her.
Malus grinned. “Watching you crumble is pitiful, and yet oh so satisfying. You have nothing now. Nothing! My way forward is clear. I have never found it necessary to use those pathetic gestures you humans call manners, but in this case, I simply must. Thank you for making this so very easy, Sunshine.”
She glanced at the blocked entrance, mad she couldn’t do anything about it. “You’re pathetic!” she yelled at him. She tried to stand but found herself exhausted and paralyzed with anger. “You will never have a body like I do. You will never know how to feel or how to love. You’re jealous of—”
“Jealous?” Malus laughed. “I do have a body, thanks to your sister. I have grown strong with a body of my own, from a steady diet of fear and despair which she supplies in such abundance. And now that you are here, I will only become stronger. You do look simply delicious, and your little boyfriend over there will make a tasty midnight snack.” He licked his chops. “As for love, you are such a fool. Your love is what drove you to me. Love is your great weakness. Your love for your sister has made you my slave.”
Aisi wanted to scream. Call him a liar. Vanquish him as easily as the other demons before him. Scratch out those smug red eyes…something! All she could manage was a muffled sob. Aisi managed to look away and over at Vance. “I’m so sorry.”
“No!” Vance yelled, shaking his head. “This isn’t all. This isn’t how I go out. There has to be something in the book, something you already know. You vanquish these things every day, Aisi. Don’t give up! You said it yourself, before we came down here. Hope is all we have.” He shoved the small black book she had dropped back into her hand. “Something in here will help. Why else would you have it?”
Aisi glanced at Nakia, who watched her from the other side of the cavern, still in the demon’s firm clutches. Her mind wandered back to when she felt hope even though Vance lost his. She hated not having control, but she couldn’t control this. She could only hope…and try. She flipped the book open to chapter thirteen, just like Rita told her, shaking her head like it was wasted effort.
The words on the aged yellow pages hardly registered in her mind as she read. A few notes scribbled in the margins in neat cursive caught her eye, and she squinted to see what they said. Just as she started to focus on them, the voice of the old miner echoed faintly in her head.
I’m still here, sis. Don’t give up. Use my book…that’s why I gave it to you.
She touched her fingertips to the handwriting on the page and the miner’s image flashed in her mind. She saw him in younger years, tormented by glowing red eyes that followed him, taunted him, eyes that grew brighter and stronger with every one of his youthful misdeeds. Like Aisi, he had nothing but the determination to conquer it.
But how? Just as that thought entered her mind, she saw the word scrawled in big, loopy letters, written in the frustration he must have felt when trapped by a force he didn’t understand: how?
Beside that one word he scribbled more, the words messy and cramped on the page, as if he rushed to write them in a moment of inspiration. She squinted at his notes in the cavern’s eerie light, trying to make sense of his moment of clarity: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.
Chapter 22 Leap of Faith
Aisi pored over the pages of the little black book with Vance next to her, a despondent expression covering his face as he rubbed his stubbled chin. His gray eyes no longer sparkled. He looked defeated, like he was losing hope with each passing moment, accepting their fate. “Aisi, I don’t think we—”
Aisi cut him off. Her eyes gleamed as understanding flooded her. “You were right. We have something Malus will never understand. Since he doesn’t get it, he can’t use it against us. We are the light because we can love. We defy the dark. It’s just like I told Leo this morning. Even the tiniest spark of light will pierce through darkness.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I have no idea what you just said.”
She jumped up excitedly, filled with confidence that she could get her sister and somehow escape despite the rocks in their way. “If we want to get out of here…” She looked up again at Nakia, who watched her with a conflicted expression. Malus held the girl back, glaring at Aisi.
She tried to remember something, anything, she and her sister shared back when they climbed into the same double bed every night, a bed covered in a girly bedspread and a mountain of stuffed animals. Something special only they would know. Something they loved together, something that was theirs. Big Billy faithfully read them bedtime stories until the night Nakia disappeared, but she couldn’t remember any of the stories he told. What else? What other special thing had been theirs?
Then it hit her. Before their great-grandma passed away, she would visit once a month and sing them a song when she tucked them in. Nana was the only relative their mom had left before she died, and she loved to croon old Broadway songs to them in a deep, gravelly voice. Aisi wracked her brain to recall the words to the one Nakia had begged Nana to sing every time. In a cracked and ragged voice, Aisi started to sing.
“I love you a bushel and a peck…”
Malus scowled, a deep, low warning growl mounting in his throat. He tightened his hold on Nakia, who stumbled toward the demon with a whimper but never took her eyes from her twin.
As she sang, Aisi found the strength to stand. With the cross clutched firmly in her hand, her voice grew loud and clear. Malus’s solid form started to blur around the edges.
“I love you…” She repeated the simple song as she took a step closer. Malus snarled, but he grew fuzzier with each word. Vance started belting it out, too, singing off key but enthusiastically, as loud as he could, stumbling over the words as he tried to pick up the tune and lyrics. From behind the stalagmites, a hoarse whisper joined when Aisi started to sing it a third time. She shifted her gaze long enough to see Monica’s gaunt mom walking toward them. Charlee joined
them, hunched over and clutching the wall beside Vance for support. As they started on the fourth round, Aisi closed her eyes and hoped Nakia could hear her thoughts. We will always love you. We miss you. Come home.
Malus’s enraged howl again pounded through their heads when Nakia shrieked and fought to break free of his grip. He roared as if in agony as his ram’s head vanished, shrinking down to a shapeless haze with angry red eyes covered by a black fedora. His dim form cloaked itself in a long black trench once more as he fought to keep hold of the girl.
“Succuro mihi!”
Aisi felt tingles rush down her spine—he was asking his minions for help. They obediently rushed down and surrounded Nakia, who screamed, “I want my sister!” Aisi rushed at them again and was instantly engulfed by an army of demons. Claws and teeth ripped at her arms as she tried to shove her way through. She didn’t care how bad it stung, that they were drawing blood. “Nakia!”
“Aisi!”
It wasn’t her sister’s voice. Vance had run after her into the sea of black shadows, peppered with devilish red eyes. He yanked her back by her hood. “Aisi, you can’t get to her. There’s no way.”
“I have to—”
“Forget it!” he yelled.
Charlee lurched toward them even though she looked too weak and skinny to move. She grabbed their hands and pulled them toward the back of the cavern. “Hurry! We can get out while they go after her!”
“I can’t leave my sister!” Aisi cried, trying to break free. She freed herself from Charlee, but Vance held firm and dragged her behind the stalagmites as he followed the woman.
Charlee led them down a passageway which narrowed as the ceiling sloped lower. The dim light of a new dawn breaking through the mist lit the end of the tunnel. They had to stoop but kept running. Vance held Aisi’s wrist determinedly, pulling her behind him as she struggled to turn back, screaming for him to let her go. They ran until they broke through the opening and found themselves on a narrow ledge of a rim rock cliff over the roaring Allegheny River, swollen and churning with spring runoff.
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